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Megopteran
The Beetle was created by Carim Nahaboo, aged 16 from Woodford Green, Essex. He won the competition held by ITV for designing a creature. Carim called his creature a "Megopteran", though the creature has not been named on-screen. Description This monster is a highly adapted predator from the future, which has evolved from carnivorous insects, such as the Tiger Beetle. It grows to around 2 metres long and as tall as a grown man. Posessing six strong legs, a long arched neck, and medium sized wings (allowing flight over short distances) it is a well adapted generalist hunter who will readily attack any avaliable prey. They appear to communicate in a series of loud hollow clicking sounds. Lacking antennae, the creatures use their large compound eyes to detect prey. When it has found a suitable victim, it will use its large mantis-like forelegs to catch it, whilst the razor sharp mantables make short work of the meal. Its long legs make it a very fast runner and it apparently preferes to hunt at groundlevel (since they can only fly short distances), and relentlessly pursue prey no matter where it tries to hide. Although evolved from hive based insects they do not seem to live in the same large colonies and have yet to show any distinct castes although three distinct sizes have been seen they all exhibit similar characteristics. The youngest Megopteran are the smallest at only 30cm, layed as eggs inside the flesh of captured prey and rapidly develop emerging from the corpse as a small scale version of the adult. The man-sized versions are the most commonly encounted. The largest versions are twice this size and only one or two have been seen. It is currently unknown if these variations are the result of age, caste differences or sexual dimorphism. They appear to be one of the apex predators of the ecosystems of the future, the other of course being the Future Predator. Given the food requirements of such large predators, it is implied these creatures do come into conflict with each other. Trivia *The Megopteran are the third "bug" creatures, to appear in Primeval after Episode 1.2 and Episode 2.5 *Insects of this size could not exist in today's atmosphere since there is insufficent oxygen to simply dissolve through there exoskeleton. This initally suggests the atmosphere of the future is rather different although the Megopteran can function well enough in the present implying this is not the case. Since they originate in the future, it is possible that their ansestors evolved some sort of lung system. *This is the third creature to kill a Future Predator, excluding the animals within the Creature Prison belonging to Oliver Leek. *This is the second non-mammalian animal from the future that the team has encountered, excluding the Fungus Creature as it was not an animal - the first is the Future Shark from Episode 2.4. *This is the only flying arthropod that the team has encountered. *This is the only creature that is a match for the Future Predators in the future habitat in which both live alongside each other. It is unclear, though, whether the Megaopterans are a serious threat to the Future Predators. The population of both seem to be abundant, it is possible that they lived on different continents and collided due to the continental shift, and they competed with each other. *In Episode 3.8 it is stated that the Megopteran is a descendent of wasps and bees, although the website and several other sources state that it is a beetle. *This is the only future creature which has evolved from two present creatures. These two were; ants and flying ants. Gallery Image:futurebeetleconcept.jpg|Concept design for the Beetle. Image:Primeval megopteran.jpg|Picture from ITV website. Category:Future Creatures Category:Fictional Creatures Category:Series 3 Creatures